Inkpunks

Last time I blogged about dealing with guilt in our creative endeavours, inspired by the words of best selling self help guru Wayne Dyer. His philosophy is that guilt is a useless emotion. He makes the same claim about worry.

“It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.” -Wayne Dyer

What he says is true, isn’t it? Well, easier said than done, I say, especially when it comes to writing, the publishing industry and my own journey.

I worry that despite my best efforts I’ll never publish a novel.

I’ve published a bunch of short stories, but what I truly love is novel writing. I’ve written five. Five! None have made it to bookshelves. It’s not stopping me from moving on to the next one, but there’s a constant, rather loud voice in the back of my head, telling me I’m probably wasting my time and I’ll never get published. Is that worry, lack of confidence or both? Either way, it can’t be a good state of mind for producing my best work. Is it possible to let go of that worry and just write?

I worry I’ll be left behind.

Many of my friends are now publishing novels and series and I worry that I’ll be left out of the cool kids club. It’s not so much that I want to be part of the cool crowd, but that I really like these people and I don’t want to lose their friendship. They’re busy with release dates, blog tours, book signings and interviews while I’m busy whining that I can’t get my plot quite right in my latest unpublished novel. Would you want to still hang with me? I worry the answer is no.

I worry I’ll never reach my full potential.

Now that’s kind of contradictory, isn’t it? If all I do is sit around and worry, of course I’ll never reach my full potential. Apparently I have enough faith in myself to believe I have potential, yet sabotage that with worrying about failing that potential. This one might just be too cyclical to deal with, but once again, Wayne Dyer is right. Worrying is keeping me immobilized.

I worry I’m really just kidding myself. 

Wait, didn’t I just say I faith in my potential? See how worry works? One minute I believe I have enough talent and determination to “make it” (let’s just leave what that really means for another post) in the publishing industry, the next I think I’m really just fooling myself. Call it imposter syndrome, lack of confidence or give it any name you like, the result is worrying that I am plain old not good enough.

Most of all, I worry I will disappoint my instructors, mentors, critique partners and writing friends.

I’ve had some great instructors at workshops, conferences and conventions over the years. I’ve been lucky to also have mentors come into my life who have been extremely generous with their time and knowledge. Add to that a real pot of gold in the form of fabulous writing peers, including some willing to critique my work. They’re always there for me, whenever I need a pep talk, advice or a plan old kick in the pants. This is the biggest worry for me. I worry every single day that I’m letting these fabulous people down, that by not reaching higher achievements in my writing career I am failing them. I worry that if I don’t succeed, I’ve wasted the time and effort they’ve put into me. I realize this kind of pressure is completely self-imposed, yet I’m pretty sure it too immobilizes me.

Clearly I have issues.

Perhaps I’m not the best person to be giving out advice on the topic of worry, but hear me out. Maybe worry isn’t a useless emotion. Maybe, just maybe, what we worry about points out what we need to work on, where we need to examine ourselves and why we need to change.

If I never publish a novel, will I have had any less fun writing the ones I did, meeting the people I did and learning what I did along the way? Absolutely not. If other authors further along the journey than me decide I’m not worth their time, is that really such a great loss? Perhaps not. If I’m kidding myself about having any potential for writing, but writing makes me happy, does it matter what the end result is? Maybe not. As for disappointing others, I hope I haven’t done that yet. This worries me the most, but perhaps it can also push me the most. If I keep writing, keep improving and using all the great advice and support I’ve been given to the best of my ability, maybe I’ll make them proud of me for never giving up.

Truly, this post is my way of screaming at myself that it’s time to do something about all the stuff I worry about. If I can get over worrying about what people will think when they read this post, maybe I will.

Trackback URL